The Devoted

"Ha... ha..."

Xilian knelt on one knee, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. Agony throbbed through his head, and his vision swam.

It took nearly a minute for Xilian to calm down. He had successfully absorbed the potion, and the restless heat inside him cooled.

"Is this... reality?"

Only after recovering his senses did Xilian take stock of his surroundings.

He had returned from the Origin Sea. His consciousness had awakened in his body in the real world, within a ring of blazing fire.

Beyond the flickering flames, Nuen held a longsword high. Angry burn marks streaked his bare arms.

Everything was as it had been at the moment the ritual began.

"Teacher!" Xilian called.

Hearing him, Nuen cautiously stepped closer, his sword still raised.

"I... think I succeeded."

Xilian looked at his hands. The Ouroboros Mark had vanished from his palm, but he could faintly sense a power beyond the ordinary lying dormant within him.

A Transcendent.

"Xilian Soflova."

Nuen spoke his full name calmly. Xilian met his gaze without wavering.

They looked at each other for a moment, and the blazing ring of fire went out.

Nuen carefully examined him. "Try to control the power inside you. Release it."

Xilian slowly clenched his fists. His knuckles cracked like snapping twigs.

The heat that had cooled inside him surged again. His blood grew hot, then began to burn.

Xilian opened his hands. The veins in his palms were no longer their familiar blue; they glowed a fiery red.

It surged!

Dense, charred patterns rose across his skin, as though an invisible wildfire were burning along his veins. Dark-red embers spread through the web of capillaries, and even his fingernails shone orange-red.

For a moment, Nuen stood stunned. Never one for words, he opened his arms and embraced Xilian.

For the first time in a long while, the stern teacher showed his gentler side.

"Xilian, you did it!"

Xilian and Nuen had told no one when they left, and no one noticed their return.

"The whole ritual only took a few minutes?"

"Only a few minutes passed between your losing consciousness after taking the potion and waking up."

Xilian frowned. "I felt like I was there for hours."

"The Origin Sea is a strange place." Nuen searched for the right words. "There's no concept of time there. Only existence in the present."

Xilian remembered the crystallized Randolph. "I know. I met someone in the Origin Sea who told me the same thing."

"Someone?"

Nuen looked at Xilian in confusion. "What happened to you in the Origin Sea?"

"It's a long story." Xilian drew a deep breath. "And a terrible one."

Xilian gave Nuen a brief account of his time in the Origin Sea, hiding nothing. As Nuen listened, his expression grew steadily darker.

"There seems to be some strange resonance between the Origin Sea and me."

Xilian recalled the illusion of the Origin Sea as a mother. "After that mysterious Chaos creature dragged me into the deep, some force protected me and brought me back to the surface."

"Unfortunately, I'd already lost consciousness by then. I don't know anything else."

Xilian paused. "Mr. Randolph Frank helped me a great deal. I don't really understand his work or those complicated rituals, but his sacrifice laid the first step of my ascent."

"Don't carry that burden, Xilian. He didn't die because of you."

"I see," Nuen said. "The followers of the Three Sages have traditions of sacrifice, to one degree or another, in emulation of what the Three Sages gave to the world."

"Is it the same for Torchbearers?" Xilian asked.

"Of course." Nuen made no attempt to avoid the subject. "The Torchbearers are made up of several Clans, each with its own distinct culture. But after that..."

At the mention of something difficult to put into words, Nuen fell silent for a while before continuing.

"In any case, only two traditions of sacrifice remained among the Torchbearers. Some Torchbearers nearing death gather together. They sharpen their swords, clean their guns, and prepare for the road, forming expeditionary bands bound for the Dark World."

Nuen spoke softly, but his words weighed heavily on Xilian.

"Do any of them come back?"

"Some. Very few."

Nuen's answer was brief.

"The other tradition is to leap into the roaring flames of the Second Sun, letting the Soul Marrow left in a failing body burn one last time. Nothing goes to waste."

"Don't think it cruel," Nuen said, trying to sound lighthearted. "After centuries of the Firekeeping Cult cultivating that belief, plenty of zealots want a 'cremation.' They believe that a body consumed by the Second Sun allows the soul to ascend in purity and take the road to heaven."

Xilian asked carefully, "Teacher, when you're too old to go on, which will you choose?"

"I don't like the Firekeeping Cult, so I'll go on an expedition into the Dark World. Though I don't know if I'll be able to gather a band."

Nuen laughed, but it had been so many years since he last smiled that his face looked stiff as a puppet's.

"The people of the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms are the truly brutal ones," Nuen said, making a rare joke. "They're all lunatics."

"To put the last of their lives to use, some Foundry Courts have a tradition of smelting their own members as raw material. Others remove their brains and install them in machines as Wetware, among other things."

Returning to Randolph, Nuen explained, "Mr. Frank, whom you met, was probably from the Purification Society under the Modian Society. He must have held at least the rank of Martyr of the Spirit. Only a Martyr of the Spirit has a soul resilient enough to serve as material for repairing the Sourcebinding Long Stair."

"Do you understand, Xilian?"

Nuen's question changed the tone at once. The air grew heavy and solemn.

"Becoming a Transcendent won't give you control over your own fate. Rather, only once you become a Transcendent are you even qualified to sacrifice yourself for the world."

"In this mad age, rational civilization endures because people make those sacrifices, no matter the cost."

Xilian could not help seeing Randolph's body crystallizing bit by bit.

He did not know what a Martyr of the Spirit truly was. But Randolph had moved with such ease through the perilous Origin Sea that he must have been an extraordinarily powerful Transcendent.

Perhaps Randolph had been even stronger than Nuen. With his status and power, he could have spent his final years in some luxurious home. Instead, he had chosen to repair the Long Stair alone, spending his flesh and blood, even his soul...

Once, as an ordinary man, Xilian could have lived under Nuen's protection with a clear conscience. Now things were different.

"I'm sorry, Xilian."

With only a few words, Nuen had swept away the joy of the ritual's success, leaving nothing but grim reality.

"It's all right, Teacher," Xilian said. "You're just worried about me. I can tell."

"You've seen a wider world and fought through more battles than I can imagine. You know the truth of that mad, dark world... That's why you always look at me with worry and pity, as if you're looking at your younger self."

Nuen was happy for Xilian's success, yet it filled him with worry.

Nuen took a deep breath and gave him a stiff smile.

"Xilian, you're not a true Torchbearer yet. There's one final ritual to complete."

Xilian was surprised. "Another ritual? I thought that was it."

"To set foot on a Fated Path, you must do more than wake from the Soul Dream and shed your ordinary nature. You must also complete certain rites unique to that path."

Nuen began to reveal another secret of the wider world.

"Take the best-known examples, the Modian Society and the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms. Scholars of the Modian Society must make a pilgrimage to the Whispering Tree. In the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms, the body parts they must replace with machinery vary by Foundry Court."

Xilian swallowed. He could understand the pilgrimage, at least.

Randolph's ability to command the Whispering Tree's roots made it clear that the Transcendents of his Fated Path were closely connected to the tree.

But the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms' mechanical alterations to the body left Xilian uneasy.

"As for the Torchbearers' ritual, you'll learn what it is tonight."